


homegrown

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Falling In Love, First Time, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Every year Senator Leia Organa extends an olive branch to the remaining ex-Empire officers, inviting them to the annual Victory Day celebration on Naboo. This year, Brendol Hux brings along his bastard, Armitage, hoping to gain some influence over Organa's son, Ben.The two get along a little better than they should.





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a benarmie prompt on tumblr
> 
> warnings (heed the tags, please): implied abuse (physical and mental), underage sex
> 
> keep yourself safe + sane, happy reading x

 

Armitage Hux’s father is drunk again.

 

Polishing off his third glass, he tips the empty cup forward, and leans back into the cushion of his chair. “Go on, boy,” he says, breath whiskey-rank. “Top it off.”

 

Hux does. His hands are clammy. The rim clinks loudly against the edge of the glass as he measures it out and his father’s eyes flash warning fire; he’s more careful, after that, heart pumping hard in his throat. He knows what will happen if he spills. It’s been a long time since he has, but he knows, he remembers. He doesn’t ever want to spill again.

 

On his father’s desk a holo is playing. Has been playing, for an hour now. It’s the same footage he always puts on, this time of year: the glowing face of the woman who has brought the galaxy to ruin, the slump-shouldered show of her husband beside her.

 

Leia Organa. Han Solo. Hux knows them, knows to hate them. He’s been taught. Brought up right. “Victory Day,” slurs Brendol. “Victory for fucking who?”

 

He doesn’t give Hux half a glance but Hux has long-since learned that he is expected to answer, all the same. “The senators,” he says. “Sir.”

 

“S’right. Fucking senators, and their highborn children. Victory Day, but let the Outer Rim starve. Fuck them.”

 

On the holo-vid, Organa throws her head back and laughs. In his armchair, his father knocks back another swallow of whiskey, brows drawn together like storm clouds.

 

“She has a son,” he says, mopping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “The bitch, Organa, she’s got a son. Did you know that?”

 

Hux presses his lips together, and says nothing. But of course he knew. He could pick him out from a whole sea of faces, with his strange spots, his wild dark hair, his dull cow-eyes. If his father ever asked, he would say he hates him, too. He’s been taught.

 

“It’s—” Brendol waves an impatient hand. “What’s’s name, Benjamin?”

 

It’s Ben. Just Ben. “Yes, sir.”

 

“‘Bout your age, isn’t he?”

 

Younger. By two years and three months. “Yes, sir.”

 

“Republic scum,” says Brendol, upper lip curling stiff over whiskey-yellowed teeth. “Hope he breaks his fucking neck.”

 

“No,” Hux blurts, without thinking, and bites down hard on the inside of his cheek after the word has slipped from his mouth. “Only because— he’s a Force-user, isn’t he? And we could use him. On our side.”

 

Brendol looks him over. Blinking rapidly, eyes unfocused, frowning like he’s just seeing him now.

 

“You’re a smart boy,” he says, “every now and then.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Hux says, and for all he hates Organa, and Solo, and their soft, highborn son, he hates his father the most. “You brought me up right.”

 

 

…

 

 

Two days later, Brendol informs him that he will be coming along, for the first time, to the Victory Day festival on Naboo.

 

Every year, a celebration of the anniversary of the Empire’s Endorian surrender is held in the capital city of Theed. And every year, without fail, Leia Organa extends her so-called “best wishes” and personal invitation Brendol’s way. A request from the woman who has the Senate on a leash isn’t the kind of request a retired war criminal can decline. And so time and time again, Hux’s father is forced to grit his teeth, bide his time, and exchange niceties with the Republic that brought him to his knees.

 

He isn’t the only surviving member of the Empire who is submitted to the misfortune of the commemoration. A handful of other officers— some of them Hux’s Academy instructors— are humiliated there, as well. The Republic thinks they have stripped them of their strength, in their displacement to the Unknown Regions; they think they have no influence, no power, little wealth. They think they are safe, snug in the Galactic Center, from whatever remnants the war has left behind.

 

They are ignorant, and foolish, and they underestimate the power of the alliances the Empire united the galaxy under, for so many years. In a matter of years the First Order will restore those alliances and that unity, regardless of the scarcity of their resources. And Hux will work his way up regardless of the potential his father assumes he lacks— which is why he agrees so readily to accompany Brendol. He’s young, it’s true. But old enough to know how to rub the right elbows. From behind enemy ranks is the perfect place to start.

 

In hyperspace he catches up on what he hasn’t been told. The festival will last through the night, and into the morning. Temporary lodging will be offered to them, and most likely accepted, unless Brendol's pride confines him to his ship after nightfall. They won’t be under surveillance, but they will be thoroughly searched before they are allowed to set foot inside the venue, and transmissions of any kind will be blocked until they are safely out of orbit.

 

Hux pokes through old information, when he’s digested the new. Han Solo has reportedly continued his track record of scandal and crime, which is unsurprising. Organa’s Jedi-brother is reportedly well-versed in his Force-religion, but shadowed from the political limelight his sister so happily basks in. He has a daughter, unimportant, still no older than a toddler— neither of them matter, really, and almost certainly won’t be at the celebration.

 

Hux pauses, tugs his lower lip between his teeth.

 

Then he flips to the file on Ben.

 

They are nothing alike. Close in age, but contradictory in every other way. Ben has everything, Hux thinks. A galaxy with the bureaucracy on his side, a family, unbroken. Magic powers. An adoring public.

 

He has never suffered, that’s for sure.

 

Not the way Hux has.

 

“Remember,” his father says, his hand tight on the back of Hux’s neck as they step off of the ship, and onto the gangway. “You’re here to work.”

 

“Of course, sir,” answers Hux. “The Order needs children. I won’t forget.”

 

 

…

 

 

In person, the darling of the Republic is terribly disappointing.

 

Hux watches him from the corner of the room, half-hidden behind marble pillars and the glass of champagne his father had forced into his hands. No one is exactly waiting in line for a chance to speak to Brendol's bastard— a blessing, really, he avoids conversation without much effort. Flying under the radar is easy. And it gives him plenty of time to study Ben.

 

The boy is awfully plain, compared to the rest of the Republicans' glitzy finery. He’s wearing black boots, a plain set of brown robes, that ridiculous haircut. He shifts constantly, playing restlessly with the funny little braid tucked behind one of his overly-large ears, eyes flitting unsteadily from person to person, never seeming to settle on anything or anyone in particular. He follows his mother around for the first half of the night, practically tugging on her sleeve every time she strays too far. But as the festivities progress and the more prestigious senators begin to circulate through the ballroom, Organa’s patience appears to thin, and at last she pries herself free with a stern word, and leaves him behind to pursue her politics.

 

With Organa to protect him, Ben had been a nervous wreck. On his own, Hux thinks, quickly working his way through the crowd, he will be hopeless.

 

“Ben Organa-Solo,” Hux calls out, by way of greeting. He’d hoped to startle the stupid, lost look off of the boy’s face— but when Ben turns, it is only to fix Hux with blank eyes. “Armitage Hux,” he introduces himself, offering up his hand when Ben continues to do nothing but stare.

 

They shake. Ben’s hand is warm, and sweaty. “Armitage,” says Ben. Uncertainly, dragging out the word like breakers raked over sand. _Arm-i-tage._

 

“Call me Hux,” says Hux. “Everyone does.”

 

“Nobody calls you that,” says Ben. “Nobody.”

 

Whatever kind of Republican Hux had been expecting Ben to be— well, in less than thirty seconds, he’s proven him right.  _Conceited, uppity blowhard—_ “How do you know?” Hux retorts, and manages to sound halfway polite even through gritted teeth.

 

“I can read minds,” says Ben, twisting his braid between his twitchy fingers, his expression flickering between pride and guilt. “I’ve been reading yours all night.”

 

Hux has to bite his tongue, to keep from rolling his eyes. “That’s— excuse me, but that’s rubbish.”

 

“I’m not lying. I have. With the Force.”

 

“Prove it.”

 

“I’m—” Ben glances over his shoulder, a knee-jerk movement, like an involuntary habit. “I’m not supposed to,” he says, quietly.

 

“Of course,” says Hux, disgusted with him, with his brainless obedience, “because your kind always does what you’re told, don’t you.”

 

“Don’t _you?”_ Ben asks, tilting his head to the side.

 

And the look on the other boy’s face— dark, intense— catches him off-guard. Makes him think that maybe Ben _isn’t_ faking. That, maybe, he _can_ read Hux’s mind, and read it easily, paging through everything Hux fights tooth-and-nail to hide away: quailing in front of his father’s fists, locking up shame and sick sorrow, answering _yes, no, sorry, sir._

Something ugly stirs in his chest.

 

“You think you know me?” he hisses, stepping close, wishing he wasn’t surrounded by the fucking bourgeoisie, wishing he could swing his fists, make him bleed. “You think you could ever know what it’s like, being me?”

 

“Yes,” says Ben, so softly that Hux almost doesn’t hear. “Armitage—”

 

He falters, reaching out, cupping Hux’s cheek in his hand, fingers brushing his temple, and then, without warning, Ben’s voice is in Hux’s _head—_

 

_I’m lonely, too._

 

The Order needs children. _The Order needs children._ Force-sensitive children, especially. Ben Organa-Solo, specifically. This is the reason, the only reason, why Hux does not spit in Ben’s eye, and turn on his heel, and leave him to his Force nonsense, and his mind-tricks, and the never-ending waves of howling, soul-wrenching grief that he can feel pouring through the point where Ben’s fingertips meet his skin—

 

“You’re shaking,” says Ben, aloud, looking alarmed. “I’m— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

 

He makes to pull back. Hux catches Ben’s wrist, stops him. They stand there in silence, in the middle of the Nubian ballroom, Ben’s fingers curled against Hux’s cheek, Hux grasping at Ben’s forearm.

 

“What else do you know about me,” says Hux at last, breathlessly.

 

Ben smiles, wide mouth, soft lips, crooked teeth.

 

“Come with me,” he says. “I’ll show you.”

 

 

…

 

 

He takes him out on one of the terraces, and there in the shadowed shelter of the setting sun, and the gentle, late-summer breeze, he casts himself into Hux's mind like it is his own. 

 

He fixes himself to Hux’s oldest memories, rifles through his most recent thoughts. Finding shameful things that Hux would deny, confronted with them by anybody else— but when Ben says things, he makes them real, makes them true. And keeps them secret, in Hux’s head, for just the two of them.

 

 _You’re not afraid of death,_ he says, as Hux starts in on his second glass of champagne. _You’re afraid of failure, though. And disappointment. And being forgotten._

It's true, it's true. His breath leaves him in a rush, throat burning in a way that has nothing to do with the sweet, sparkling wine.

_You’re afraid of this, too,_ Ben adds.  _But you’re not afraid of me._ His eyes are dark and earnest, when Hux looks up into them, clutching at the front of his robes with one hand, fixing the material between his fingers. There’s nothing else to hold onto. Nothing else to steady him.

 

“You’re not afraid of me,” says Ben again, with his shy, strange voice this time. “I like that.”

 

“Where did you learn all of this?” Hux demands.

 

“An Academy. On Yavin 4.”

 

“There’s a school for mind-reading?”

 

Ben blushes. “No, it’s— for everything. My parents, they sent me there. I have to go back, tomorrow. I’m supposed to be a Jedi,” he admits, as if that’s a secret of his own. “Reading minds— without permission. It’s forbidden. Sometimes if, if you don’t have permission, it hurts people, so Luke, that’s my uncle. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t let me do it.”

 

“If I could do it,” says Hux, thinking of his father, “I would do it all the time.”

 

Ben grins a little, nervously, rocking back on his heels. “My father hates it,” he says. “My mother, too.”

 

“Why?”

 

“They think it’s dangerous. They sent me away because— they think I’m dangerous.”

 

“Well,” says Hux, one hand still on Ben’s chest. “Aren’t you?”

 

“No. I don’t know.”

 

“You don’t know?” Ben’s black eyes flicker when he leans forward, flitting from his nose to his mouth like he isn’t sure which part of him to look at, or focus on. “So you can read my mind,” Hux taunts, “but not your own? Or are you just a stupid senator’s son, who likes to feel like he’s more than—”

 

“Your father thinks you’re weak,” Ben blurts, defensively.

 

The words land like a punch and Hux jerks back. Blinks through it, throat closing up. He looks out over the terrace, tips his head back and drinks, and drinks again, until the glass is halfway drained.

 

“Sorry,” says Ben. “I’m, I’m sorry, I—” He groans, and yanks his hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean to— see, this is why I shouldn’t—”

 

“He’s wrong,” Hux says. Maybe it’s the alcohol loosening his tongue, but saying it feels good, purging him of some kind of poison. He chases after the feeling, goes even further. “Fuck my father,” he says, louder. 

 

“Mine, too,” says Ben, so quick to agree that it sounds almost forceful. Around them, as if in understanding, the terrace lights flicker and buzz. It feels like magic, and, well— yes. Maybe it is. Hux takes another sip of his champagne; when he offers it to Ben, Ben takes it, fingers bumping against Hux’s knuckles. He coughs, when it goes down, then smiles, _truly_ smiles, a wonderfully bizarre thing, and grips at the collar of Hux’s jacket, and tugs him forward, and then.

 

Kissing Ben is nice, if a bit sloppy.

 

Hux doesn’t think that Ben has ever done it before, but then again, neither has he. They fumble through it, trembling against each other with wrong angles and hot breath until Hux is sitting on the stone ledge of the terrace wall, with Ben’s hands on his waist, and Ben standing between his legs.

 

“My father’s the one who put me up to this,” says Hux, giddy when Ben pulls back, laughing low in his chest, running his hands through Ben’s hair, petting at his braid. It’s soft. Just as soft as he’d always imagined, looking at those holos, hating him. “He wants you on our side. He says— we need children.”

 

“Oh,” says Ben. “Well. You need me more.” He smiles again, saying it, like an idiot— and Hux, Hux can’t help it, he smiles back, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel so idiotic, anymore.

 

“Kiss me again,” says Hux. “I don’t need you,” he whispers, when Ben does, _but I want you,_ he thinks, and his chest is too-full, his ears hot and his head fuzzy, _you know me._ _Nobody knows me, you’re the only one._

_Good,_ says Ben, shivering when Hux licks at his mouth. _I don’t want anyone else to know, I want to know everything, I want everything._

_Then take it,_ Hux answers, and Ben reaches up to hold his face in his hands.

_Take it, I’m giving it to you._

_…_

 

 

The night blurs.

 

Spiraling into a matter of hours that speed up and stretch out into the swell of lights and half-stifled laughter and what feels like time made infinite. Not adhering to the laws of the universe. Not adhering to any laws at all. 

 

They nick a bottle of Corellian from the palace cellars, and hide it in the folds of Ben’s robes. They sneak into a coat closet and kiss until their lips are shiny and red, and when the coat-check comes through they stumble out into the palace hall again. They share swallows of wine. Share startled laughter and clumsy mouths.

 

Somehow, they end up in one of the private apartments, the rooms meant for patrons only.

 

“Don’t worry,” says Ben, slurring his words as he bounces back onto the ornate bed in the middle of the room, fingers tracing along the embroidered coverlet. “No one will bother us in here. I made sure.”

 

“How?” says Hux, sitting on the mattress edge. “With your magic?”

 

“S’not magic. S’the universe.”

 

“That sounds stupid.”

 

“You sound stupid. Armitage,” pulling the syllables apart.

 

“Shut up,” says Hux, kissing him to make sure that he does. Ben puts his hands on Hux’s shoulders, locks his arms around Hux’s neck; Hux slumps sideways and stretches out beside him, not thinking about anything but the way Ben’s nose presses into his cheek, the sounds he makes when Hux takes the white of his throat between his teeth.

 

“Uh,” says Ben, turning his head after Hux has nibbled on his lower lip hard enough to make him whimper. “You know— Jedi are celibate.”

 

Oh, Hux thinks, and _oh,_ feeling, suddenly, the hardness against his hip. “Are you?”

 

“I’m not a Jedi, yet.”

 

“But you’ve never—”

 

“No,” Ben says, sounding very sorry for it. “Never, have you—”

 

“Never,” says Hux. He shifts his leg, pressing up against him, then traces the shape with his fingertips, when his curiosity grows to be too much. Ben is bigger than Hux is, but he isn’t bitter about it. Maybe because he’s here, right now. The first one to ever do this to him, the son of the Republic’s sweethearts. “Do you want to?” he asks.

 

Ben sucks in a breath, hips twitching against Hux’s thigh. “I don’t know how.”

 

“It’s not exactly _difficult._ You've touched yourself, haven't you? You’ve made yourself come?”

 

“Yeah,” says Ben. Even in the low lights, Hux can see him flush. “But, but only. Only a few times.”

 

Hux snorts. “I bet that’s a lie,” he says, and tightens his grip. “I bet you do it every night.”

 

“I— what? That’s, no, I—”

 

“I bet you’re dirty.” He doesn’t know where the words are coming from. No one in the porno-vids he’s watched talks this much— but he likes the thin, sharp sound of his voice saying vulgar, wicked things. And he likes the way that Ben has gone scarlet, mouth hanging slack and open, eyes fixed on Hux’s lips. “You’re dirty,” Hux says, rubbing the heel of his hand in circles over the bulge between Ben’s thighs. “Aren’t you. Are you going to come?”

 

“Yeah,” says Ben. His voice cracks.

 

“Say it.”

 

“Yeah, I’m gonna come.”

 

“Soon?”

 

“Yeah,” says Ben, sobbing a little, “fuck, fuck, I don’t want to, not yet. I don’t want to be done, I don’t want to go back. I don’t want you to go.”

 

“I’ll take you home,” Hux says. “I’ll take you home with me, I’ll do this to you every night.”

 

“Because I’m dirty,” says Ben, nodding frantically, jerking up against Hux’s palm. “Fuck,” he says again. “Fuck, touch me, please.”

 

He does, without teasing him any more. He wants too badly to see Ben unmade, wants to be the one to unmake him. He slips his fingers through the cut of Ben’s sweat-sticky robes, beneath the waistband of his underclothes, and cups him in his hand. Stroking him over the slit, down the shaft. His cock is hot and thick between his fingers; he pumps his fist experimentally, and hears Ben’s breath hitch.

 

“More,” Ben begs, choking on the word.

 

Hux strokes him faster. “Like this?”

 

“More, please, I’m— oh, fuck, I’m gonna—”

 

“Like this,” Hux repeats, dizzy from the wine and his want and the ache in his hips. He’s wet with precome in his trousers. More aroused than he’s ever been jacking off under the covers in an Academy bunk, and he hasn’t even touched himself yet. He tries to rub against something— the mattress, his free hand— but then he loses the rhythm he’s built up to, stroking Ben, and he doesn’t want that, he wants it to be good and perfect, wants Ben to remember this every time he takes himself in his own hand, wants Ben to remember _him—_

****

“I will,” gasps Ben, “Hux,” and then he’s crying out and coming, all over himself.

****

Hux nudges Ben’s legs together after a moment, rolling him over onto his side, hitching up his robes. He takes his cock out with unsteady hands, pushes it between Ben’s bare thighs; even blissed-out and weak with aftershocks Ben knows to squeeze and clench around him. It doesn’t take long before the thrust of his hips starts to stutter, chasing the climax that’s been building sweetly in his belly since Ben first said _yeah,_ the way he had, _yeah,_ gruff and deep slipping out of that wide, soft mouth—

 

As if on cue, Ben turns his head. Hux thinks he’s going to say something vile, something filthy— but Ben kisses him, instead, and he spills that way, thick and hot and sticky between Ben’s thighs, one of Ben’s hands tangled in his hair, Ben sucking hard on his tongue.

 

“You called me Hux,” Hux says, when he’s stopped whimpering, and panting. “Before you came.”

 

Ben bites at his lip. Then kisses his chin, and smiles.

 

“Doesn’t everybody?” he says.

 

 

…

 

 

In the morning, Hux wakes up with a terrible headache, and a desert-dry mouth.

 

He’s almost entirely still dressed, his trousers shoved down around his knees, his jacket slung half-off and boots laced up. Ben is wrapped around him, robes stained with dry come, face pressed into his neck.

 

“Ben,” says Hux, shaking him, swaying as he sits up. His stomach heaves a complaint, but he doesn’t think he’ll vomit. “Ben, get off.”

 

“No,” Ben says, turning his face to muffle his voice against Hux’s shoulder. “No, no, don’t make me. Don't go."

 

The plea slips sharp between his ribs. Hux doesn’t want to, either. Everything about this seems incredibly unfair, having his world turned upside-down overnight, with only a handful of hours to put himself back together again.

 

He shakes Ben off anyway, and heads to the refresher.

 

The water— _real water—_ feels good on his skin. But it feels like a betrayal, too, somehow. Like as he’s washing away the sweat and gunk from the night before, he’s washing Ben away with it. _Wish I could put you in a bottle,_ he thinks, closing his eyes, hoping Ben will hear. _Carry you around, take you out and put you on, whenever I wanted._

Ben doesn’t answer, probably still sprawled in bed. Hux has to scrub his fingers hard into his hair to keep from thinking it again— or worse, saying it out loud. When he’s rinsed completely he dries off with one of the clean white towels folded on the rack next to the mirror, and puts his clothes back on. They don’t smell too awful. A little stiff, in the places where he’d spilled wine. Somehow he’d managed to keep his come off of them— maybe because he’d gotten it all on Ben. He hopes it’ll be harder for Ben to scrub Hux from his skin, harder than it was for Hux to wash him away.

 

When he comes out of the fresher his headache has dulled slightly, and Ben is naked, taking fresh robes from a droid he’s called. He blushes when Hux looks at him, hurrying to pull the robes over his head as though he has a reason to be shy. Hux knows what his face looks like after an orgasm, what the sweat under his ear tastes like. But then again, there are things he might never know. Like his middle name, what his favorite holo-drama is, why he flushes and fidgets and stammers, like he has something to hide.

 

It’s funny, Hux thinks, and also not funny at all. How you can know everything important there is to know about someone, and still not really know them.

 

In the ballroom, the crowd has dissipated into celebratory goodbyes. The senators are shaking hands, chatting with happy, tired lines under their eyes. Some are already drifting back off into the city; quite a few more are loading their belongings back onto their ships. Luggage is scattered around the edges of the room, a few hassled-looking servants searching for lost bags and misplaced personal effects.

 

“Come home with me,” Hux says, pressing the words close against Ben’s ear as they walk to the landing platform. He doesn’t really mean it, because it’s impossible to, but he says it all the same: “Fuck your family, and your Jedi school.”

 

Ben smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Fuck them,” he says, quietly.

 

“Come to my Academy. You can read everyone’s minds, and tell me everything they’re thinking—” No one would ever slight him again. No one would underestimate them, together; for once, his classmates, his father— they would be the ones to be afraid. They would all be afraid.

 

“We’d give them a reason to be,” whispers Ben, grabbing hold of his hand, and they go out together into the pink Nubian dawn, Hux’s father snapping impatiently at the attendants hauling their trunks on-board, everything painfully real again, real and razor-sharp, the weight of the world falling into place somewhere in his chest.

 

“Ben,” says Hux, squeezing his fingers tightly, _I don’t want to go, please, I don’t want to._ “Write to me,” he begs, as his father calls out for him from the gangway, the engines firing up behind them, the wind tousling through Ben’s curls. “Tell me you’ll write.”

 

“I will,” says Ben, and lets go of his hand. “Every day.”

 

 

…

 

 

It’s a month, before Hux hears from him again.

 

At first he tells himself it’s lag time, because of the galaxies forced between them. Then he thinks maybe it’s because of training. But even Jedi-learners must have free time; Hux does, after all, glancing at his inbox in every moment he has to spare. Checking during classes, after every sparring match. Sneaking his data pad under his pillow after lights-out in case Ben messages him while he’s falling asleep, in case, just in case.

 

He’s never felt this way about anyone. He’s never met anyone who could make him feel this way, never met anyone who knew exactly how to know him.

 

Ben had gotten to him, he realizes, after another morning of empty inboxes and hope heavy on his tongue, clutching his pillow to his chest like it could muffle the ache. He had let Ben get to him, he'd been so stupid—

 

He hadn’t known it would hurt.

 

It’s later that night, when he’s begun to accept that he will never hear from him again, that it happens:

 

_Hux._

 

He almost doesn’t see it, the message. He’s climbing into his bunk, and catches the flash of his data pad out of the corner of his eye, just his name, just _Hux._ The three little letters blinking incessantly: _Hux, Hux._

 

He scrambles to answer, his heart turning over. _Ben_ , Hux writes, _I’m here._ And then, a relived, wrecked sound breaking in his chest, _I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I feel like I’m going mad. Where have you been? You said you would write._

 

 _I’m leaving,_ Ben answers, after an agonizing minute of static silence. _Soon._

 

Hux re-reads the message.

 

Re-reads it again, brow furrowing, mouth shaping soundlessly around the words.

 

Leaving? He doesn’t— _I don’t understand._

 

_It’s my fate. He’s shown me my true purpose._

_Who?_

_I can’t tell you._

_What’s your purpose, then?_

_You’ll see. I promise._

 

 _Are you writing in code?_ Hux responds, upset. _What the fuck is any of this supposed to mean? I fucking miss you, Ben, don’t you miss me?_

 

Ben types for a long time, but when his message finally comes through, there’s no explanation, or answer. _When we see each other again,_ he’s written, _I’ll be stronger than you could ever imagine._

 

 _Fuck you._ Hux’s eyes burn. _Four_ _weeks without a word, and that’s all you’re going to say?_

_No,_  Ben sends back, immediately, _wait, Hux. Please. I’m frightened._

_Of what?_

_Nothing. It’s nothing I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything._

_Ben,_ writes Hux, feeling, suddenly, that something is very wrong, _what’s happening?_

 

_I’ll be stronger, when it’s over. I wish I could have heard your voice. I just wanted you to know._

_Know what?_

 

Five minutes pass, without a reply. Then ten. Hux’s hands are shaking.

 

 _Ben?_ he writes. _What did you want me to know?_

_Are you still there?_

_Please answer._

_You’re scaring me._

_Ben?_

_Ben?_

 

He stays up for hours, staring at the screen until his eyes blur over, and go sore. He falls asleep propped up against the headboard of his bed, data pad still clutched in his hands, waiting with a sickened heart for the chime of a message that never comes.

 

When he wakes, his inbox is still empty.

 

And an hour later, a public broadcast is transmitted through the capital city of Hosnian Prime, _[RED ALERT; BREAKING NEWS]:_

 

_[YAVIN 4 ACADEMY ATTACKED]_

_[STUDENTS SLAUGHTERED, SKYWALKER MISSING]_

_[BEN ORGANA-SOLO IS DEAD]_

 

 


End file.
